BY RAÚL CASTRO
Eight years ago, all of Cuba was shaken by an event that
the censored and venal press covered only partially and in a
distorted way: the assault on the Moncada garrison, the
military fortress of the eastern province.

What most people knew at the time was that on July 26,
1953, a large group of young people, led by Fidel Castro, had
launched a bold military operation to capture the Moncada
garrison, that there had been a fierce battle, that more than
eighty young people had been taken prisoner and then
murdered, and that in the days that followed, others had been
arrested and jailed.

July 26, 1953, opened a new phase in Cuban history, the
phase of armed action as the principal method of struggle
against the Batista tyranny and against the semicolonial
foreign domination of our country.

In his trial, Fidel was both his own defense attorney and
an implacable accuser of the tyranny and of the existing
social and economic system in Cuba. In his speech to the
court, which became known as "History Will Absolve Me," he
explained the basis and justification for that historic
attack, which the tyranny turned into a blood-soaked
massacre, and the political ends he intended to achieve.

The assault on the fortress did not aim to achieve power
through the action of a hundred men. Rather, it was meant as
the first step by a determined group to arm the people of
Cuba and begin the revolution.

It was not a putsch that sought an easy victory without
the support of the people.(1) Rather, it was a surprise attack
to disarm the enemy and arm the people, with the aim of
sparking revolutionary armed action.

Not a putsch
It was not simply a blow to take power from Batista and
his accomplices in power. Rather, it was the opening shot of
an effort to transform the whole political, economic, and
social system in Cuba. It sought to end foreign oppression,
poverty, unemployment, unhealthy living conditions, and lack
of culture, all of which weighed heavily on the homeland and
the people.

At that time Fidel did not have an organization built
around and committed to those ends. Fidel was confident that,
given the political situation and discontent in the country,
fighters would come forward spontaneously as soon as there
were arms and leaders. It is important to point out, however,
that he was not trying to organize an action behind the back
of the masses, but rather to find the means to arm and
mobilize them for the armed struggle. The goal was not to
take over the seat of government and grab power, but rather
to initiate revolutionary action to bring the people to
power.

The government of Carlos Prío was coming to an end. Like
earlier governments, it had fallen into discredit because of
its subordination to imperialist interests; because of
gangsterism;(2) the shameless theft of public funds; its
intervention into the unions and the imposition of handpicked
leaders; the repression against the labor movement; the
closing down of the revolutionary press and the murder of
many of its leaders. The Authentic Party, which brought Prío
to power, had been greatly weakened. It lost many members and
lacked any semblance of mass support. The Authentic Party,
together with the Liberal, Democratic, and Republican
Parties, had formed a government coalition that came to be
known as the "hip pocket parties," representing a small
minority of old-time corrupt politicians, who in turn
represented the traditional dominant sectors of Cuban
society. These "corks" were accustomed to floating atop all
the political tides and storms in the country, showing that
the earlier political upheavals in our country had not yet
been enough to keep them down under water for good.

The people were dissatisfied, but they expected change in
the next general elections, for which everyone was preparing.

In the opposition camp the Orthodox Party, with great
influence in the petty bourgeoisie, had the most authority.
The Popular Socialist Party had broad influence among the
masses of workers and peasants.(3) The United Action Party
(PAU), created by Batista and others of his ilk, had no
chance of victory.

The Orthodox Party, with its founder Eduardo Chiba's
dead,(4) turned down a unity pact proposed by the PSP, which
had offered to support the Orthodox Party's presidential
candidate.(5) While the ortodoxos rejected unity with other
political forces, however, they opened their doors and
offered important leadership posts to a large number of old-
time politicians, plantation owners, bankers, Platt Amendment
types,(6) and so on.

Nevertheless, with admirable discipline and a spirit of
sacrifice, the Cuban Communists thought only about what was
best for Cuba at the time, despite rejection by the Orthodox
Party and daily warnings from that party's principal leaders
that they wanted no agreement with the Communists. These
warnings were aimed above all at the ears of the imperialists
so they would look favorably on an Orthodox Party government
in Cuba. The PSP decided to support the Orthodox Party
presidential candidate while running their own independent
candidates for the Senate and House of Representatives on a
deep-going program of measures: against imperialism,
landlordism, discrimination, unemployment, attacks on
unionists, and Mujalism.(7)

Batista's coup
Thus there was no doubt that, as the major opposition
party and with the backing of the Popular Socialist Party,
the Orthodox Party's victory in the next elections would be
easily attained.

That was where things stood in Cuba on March 10, 1952,
eighty-two days before the elections. On that day a coup
d'état led by Batista took place, with imperialist
sponsorship, aimed at reinforcing Cuba's semicolonial status
and preventing an Orthodox Party victory in the elections.
The coup makers had nothing to fear from that party's top
leadership. But there was indeed reason to fear the masses
who supported the Orthodox Party, as well as their demands
after the party came to power. These masses would not be
satisfied with formal liberties.

In a matter of hours, the government collapsed like a
house of cards and the president, Carlos Prío, cowardly
fled.

There was generalized national indignation; the masses
filled the streets-but then returned to their homes
discouraged. The opposition leaders, who were to spend the
seven long years of anti-Batista struggle at podiums each
claiming to best represent the people, immediately revealed
their timidity and weakness.

The coup not only produced a political crisis in the
country. At the same time it brought about a deeper crisis in
the leadership of the Orthodox Party, which had come so close
to power and now was so far from it. All their weaknesses,
ambitions, and incapacity-with the exceptions we're all aware
of-came to the fore.

Neither the party nor any of the innumerable factions its
leaders were divided into, could offer a road forward, much
less a program of struggle, to the masses who yearned for
something more than formal rights. The masses had shown even
before the coup that they wanted something more than a mini-
program of honesty in government, which would not solve
anything. They were beginning to understand that the
reactionary coup was not aimed against the previous
government but against them and their honest aspirations. In
face of this situation, a leadership that advocated doing
nothing, supposedly out of "dignity," while making useless
complaints to the Organization of American States, and
raising such pitiful slogans as not buying shoes and clothes,
not going to the movies, buying as little as possible, moral
repudiation, etc., etc., would not do. These things would not
even have scared the mayor of a small town.

Worst of all was that their influence and proposals posed
a genuine obstacle to mobilizing the masses in revolutionary
struggle against the tyranny; they blocked unity in action of
the revolutionary forces. Their most prominent leaders
practiced and preached anticommunism, without which no
bourgeois leader would get a green light from the Yankees in
order to obtain power. So, we had a sizable task before us:
to fight Batista as well as what many of the opposition
leaders represented.

Opposition to the tyranny
The results were not long in coming. Five months after the
coup, the first anniversary of the death of Chiba's was
approaching. On that day thousands of citizens went to his
tomb, more to pay tribute to him and take advantage of the
opportunity to hold a demonstration against the tyranny than
to listen to the usual empty words of the speakers.

There among the crowd a small mimeographed newspaper of
several pages was circulated, called El Acusador [The
Accuser], edited by Fidel Castro and several ortodoxos. It
carried an article entitled "A Critical Assessment of the
PPC(8)," signed by Fidel and expressing the sentiments of the
ortodoxo masses. It stated:

"Above the tumult of the cowards, the mediocrities, and
the weak-spirited, it is necessary to make a brief, yet
useful and constructive assessment of the ortodoxo movement
since the death of its great leader, Eduardo Chiba's."

Later it stated:

"Whoever believes that everything we've done up to now was
good and was correct, that we need not criticize ourselves,
is rather loose and easy with his conscience."

"Those sterile quarrels after Chiba's's death, those huge
conflicts, not ideological but purely selfish and personal,
still ring as bitter hammerblows in our conscience.

"That disgraceful act of using public forums to air
Byzantine quarrels was a deep symptom of indiscipline and
irresponsibility.

"March 10 came unexpectedly. It was to be hoped that such
a serious event would pull up by its roots the petty
squabbles and sterile personal issues in the party. But was
this what happened?

"To the surprise and indignation of the party's ranks, the
stupid quarrels began to resurface. Those responsible showed
total lack of sense in not noticing that while the
opportunity to attack the regime in the press was limited,
the door to attack each other was wide open. There have been
many such examples of this type of conduct, which has served
Batista.

"No one will be shocked that such a necessary assessment
is being made today. It is now the turn of the masses, who in
bitter silence have suffered these mistakes. There could be
no more appropriate moment than today, when we render
accounts to Chiba's at his tomb.

"These vast masses of the PPC are ready, more determined
than ever. Ask yourselves in these moments of sacrifice:
`Where are the aspirants-those who wanted to be first in the
seats of honor in the assemblies and government councils;
those who ran for office and formed tendencies; those who
demanded to be up at the speakers' stage at the mass rallies?
Today they are not running for office, not mobilizing in the
streets, not demanding places of honor in the front lines of
combat.

"Faced with this picture, those who have a traditional
concept of politics might feel pessimistic. For those with
blind faith in the masses, however, those who believe in the
indestructible strength of great ideas, the indecision of the
leaders will not give rise to weakening or discouragement,
because the vacuum will quickly be filled by honest men from
the ranks.

"The hour is revolutionary and not political. Politics is
the consecration of opportunism by those who possess means
and resources. The revolution opens the door to true merit,
to those with courage and sincere ideals, to those who offer
up their bare chests and take the banner in their hands. A
revolutionary party must have a leadership that is
revolutionary, young, and of popular origin. That is what
will save Cuba."

In that article Fidel expressed the concerns of the
ortodoxo masses. He had decided to make these ideas public
after several months of knocking on all the doors of those
politicians for whom Batista and imperialism, with their coup
and its deep consequences, had placed a gravestone on their
public lives with the initials R.I.P. on it. Seven years
later it would be the turn of Batista and imperialism, which
fought to keep him in power. They would be buried by the
hands of the people and their revolution of January 1959.

Youth take to the streets
The masses who supported the Orthodox Party ended up like
an army whose officers had fled in disorder and for good. Its
youth still participated in any activity called against the
tyranny, while new leaders were emerging from its ranks.
Through struggle these forces were evolving politically.
While fighting against the tyranny, they formed circles where
Marxism was studied, pamphlets were printed-single sheets,
small mimeographed newspapers-and they prepared themselves
for the struggle. Many joined the Socialist Youth.(9)

A few months later, on January 28, 1953 -the hundredth
anniversary of the birth of José Martí - a large
demonstration of workers, students, white collar employees,
and the people in general set off from the steps of the
University of Havana. Within the crowd, attention was drawn
to a group of several thousand youths who marched in perfect
formation, filling up six blocks. At their head was Fidel.
These were the youth, in their majority from the Orthodox
Party, who had now found a leader and were searching for new
methods of struggle. (10)

Batista, feeling himself invulnerable, with his
stubbornness and blindness, as well as his specific role as
imperialism's guard dog, had led the country to a dead end.
All that was possible through peaceful means would be a
contest among the various leaderships of bourgeois parties
who were vying for power behind the backs of the people and
against their interests. There were four parties that,
together with the Authentic Party, had made up the government
coalition of Carlos Prío. One of these, the Republican
Party, lined up behind Batista only two days after the coup.
Before the end of the year, the Democratic and Liberal
Parties were in power once more, together with Batista. It
was an example of how politics in Cuba was a thieves' picnic.
Among the working class, the ouster of its honest leaders was
intensifying. The gangster-like imposition of false leaders,
armed assaults on the unions, the gradual loss of many of the
workers' conquests, and the offensive of the bosses allied
with Mujal and imperialism, was deepening the divisions
within it. Their banner was anticommunism, carefully fed by
the U.S. embassy through its agents in leading posts in the
CTC. All this meant that the day when the mass workers
movement would be ready to fight was far off.

In the countryside, the now-vanished Rural Guard, a type
of rural political police, carried out the same role as do
the carabineros today in sister countries. They did not even
allow our peasants to meet to form organizations allowing
them to fight for their most immediate demands. Only a few
such fighters remained, who at a heavy cost had been able to
resist the attacks of the land grabbers and their Rural Guard
defenders. These included peasant fighters at Realengo 18,
Las Maboas, and El Cobre.(11)

Whenever they had the opportunity, the students took to
the streets in demonstrations and confrontations with the
police. But in spite of their growing combativity, they
remained a small part of society. Keeping their heroic
tradition of struggle alive, they constituted a permanent
agitational factor, but by themselves they could do little or
nothing.

We were all in agreement, and were conscious that to
destroy the tyranny it was necessary to set in motion a mass
movement. But given everything that had happened as mentioned
above, how could this be done? At that time Fidel was saying,
"A little engine is needed that will help start up the big
engine."

The little engine would be an initial action with those
same young people who, marching in virtual military
formation, followed Fidel that January 28, 1953. They began
receiving basic military training, including the handling of
arms and target practice. Sometimes this was done in small
groups at the university; other times it was conducted at
small farms of friendly peasants in Havana province.

Movement of working-class youth
These youth came from poor families. The majority
consisted of workers and white collar employees, along with a
few peasants. Most came from Havana and provincial towns in
Havana province. Some were from Pinar del Río. Artemisa
stood out for the number of magnificent young fighters it
provided. Many of them would fall in battle over the coming
years. Some became heroic Moncada combatants, firm
revolutionaries in prison and exile, Granma
expeditionaries,(12) and courageous guerrilla officers. Some
were Rebel Army founders-like Ciro Redondo and Julio Díaz,
heroes of our youth who, like so many others, fell in the
Sierra Maestra without being able to see the triumph of their
cause. In homage to their memory, once the war was over and
after seven years of absence and tireless struggle, they were
transported on the shoulders of the people to their native
city of Artemisa.

That's what those young people were like, sons of our
working people, who marched behind Fidel that January 28.
They had already received some military training, preparing
themselves for the road of armed struggle, the only road we
saw that had the possibility of success. Meanwhile, they
participated in demonstrations, rallies, and any other type
of struggle against the Batista tyranny.

Fidel had already decided that the little engine would be
the taking of the Moncada fortress, the one farthest from the
capital. Once it was in our hands, it would spur the big
engine, the combative people. The people would fight with the
weapons we captured for the program we were to proclaim. The
plan had one weak point: if we failed to take the garrison,
everything else would fall apart. One thing depended on the
other, the big engine on the smaller one. But it was
possible, and we threw ourselves into it.

July 26, St. Ann's Sunday, was chosen because, as everyone
knows, on that day Carnival is at its high point in Santiago
de Cuba. Thousands of Cubans from all over the country,
including many tourists from Havana, as well as natives of
Santiago who return to their home town for a week to enjoy
the traditional popular celebration. This meant that our men
could travel from Havana to Santiago, passing themselves off
as just other tourists. Together with the movement of masses
of people and luggage, the transport of weapons was also made
easier.

Well over a year had passed since Fidel had begun
assembling together the movement. Up to that point it
remained without a name. It was known simply as "The
Movement" to the best of the ortodoxo youth who were able to
have contact with it.

Several chapters of a book would be warranted to fully
recount this whole historical event, including the period of
advance preparation for the Moncada action. I will limit
myself here to pointing out the essential features.

Financed by those who gave everything
The success of the operation depended to a large extent on
the military strength available to us, and therefore largely
on the economic resources we could assemble. Unfortunately,
after many sacrifices, only 20,000 pesos were raised. Three
examples are sufficient to show how the money was raised, to
cite cases of compañeros who were killed. Elpidio Sosa sold
his small business and appeared before Fidel with three
hundred pesos "for the cause." Fernando Chenard sold the
equipment from his photography studio, from which he earned
his living. Pedro Marrero borrowed against many months'
future wages, and he had to be prevented from selling all the
furniture from his home. There were other cases like this.
It's easy to imagine how the funds were raised, among those
who gave everything, and later on gave their lives. There is
no way to measure the gap between the honorable and patriotic
attitude of these young Cubans and the attitude of those
politicians who spent millions on their electoral campaigns
but were incapable of giving one cent to free the country.
And I don't think it was because they were aware that later
on we would free ourselves from them too. Because at that
time, neither they, much less "their enemy" Batista and
imperialism, could imagine what would come later.

With such limited resources, arms were few and of low
quality. One by one, several dozen automatic five-cartridge
12 gauge shotguns and a similar number of semi-automatic .22
caliber rifles were purchased. We obtained only one .45
caliber Browning machine gun, an M-1 carbine, several .44
caliber Winchester rifles-like those used by cowboys in U.S.
Westerns-and some pistols of various calibers. This was our
entire arsenal. It was enough, at one weapon per fighter, to
arm 150 men. It was easy to obtain such arms with fake
licenses, using them over and over in different gun shops.
This was because in spite of the vigilance and control the
regime maintained over the sale of arms in the capital, no
one could imagine that a military fortress would be attacked
with rifles meant for shooting birds.

The plan moved forward amidst all sorts of anxieties and
unimaginable difficulties, including economic strains and
government vigilance. It was true that such vigilance had not
reached the brutal and implacable forms of bloody persecution
as it would in years to come; yet it nevertheless required
that we observe all the rules and security measures of
clandestine struggle.

There was a small general staff, led by Fidel. It was
composed of Abel Santamaría, our second in command; José
Luis Tasende; Renato Guitart; Antonio "Ñico" López
Fernández; Pedro Miret; and Jesús Montané. Of them, only
Fidel and the latter two are still alive. Ñico López died
in the Granma landing three years later.

The principal tasks were divided among these compañeros.
Each pursued the plans in his own area of responsibility. The
other men were grouped in cells, which became something like
seven-man squads. Later on, as organization became further
refined, they were organized into groups made up of several
squads each.

These conditions made for difficult working conditions. No
less difficult was the situation created by the hostility,
humiliations, underestimation, contempt, and ridicule that we
suffered in that "opposition to Batista" environment, where
it was not clear who was being opposed more-Batista, or those
who worked honestly against Batista. Although the people and
nearly the entire youth had lost faith in them, there were
still a lot of "big chiefs" full of the "dignity of doing
nothing"; big shots who looked down on us with scorn,
especially toward Fidel. There were a lot of pompous
individuals, coffehouse strategists who in well-known
restaurants were jotting down on napkins their plans for
solving Cuba's problems. In a not very disguised way, they
were seeking to advance their personal aspirations for the
future.

But our plans went ahead, ignoring these triflers who,
through the heat of battle, the fall of Batista, and the
coming of the revolution, would see their clay pedestals
dissolve and would be unable to tolerate or understand, much
less assimilate, the revolutionary storm in our country that
would engulf them all: the pseudorevolutionaries as well as
Batista and imperialism. [...]

[The article then details the attack and the reasons for
its failure - ed.]

Program benefiting workers, peasants
The Moncada attack was not aimed simply at overthrowing
the tyranny. Nor were its aims separate and apart from the
economic and social situation the country was in.

Its basis was precisely the total repudiation of Batista,
his government, and what it represented. The general crisis
of our semicolonial structure was worsening. Unemployment was
increasing. The workers, the peasants, all the popular
sectors in our country were showing great dissatisfaction.
Our bourgeoisie was dissatisfied too, because of the economic
stagnation Cuba was suffering and the ruinous competition of
the voracious Yankee imperialist monopolies. The latter did
not worry too much about the bourgeoisie's concerns, however,
knowing that it was paralyzed by fear-above all in Latin
America-that the working class and the peasants would lead a
patriotic and democratic struggle and win power. The Yankee
imperialist monopolies were confident that in a crisis the
national bourgeoisie would take their side against the
sovereignty and independence of its own country.

For our part, the plan was the following: [Together with
the Moncada attack] we would simultaneously attack the Bayamo
garrison, with the aim of placing forward units at the Cauto
River. We would arm the people with weapons taken from the
dictatorship's soldiers. We would cut the highway and
railroad by taking the bridges. We would occupy the airport
and radio stations. We would then address the people with a
program that would take effect immediately in the territory
under our control, a program benefitting workers and
peasants, professionals, the petty bourgeoisie, middle-class
layers in the city. We were convinced that by our action, we
would unleash the revolutionary storm throughout the country.

A description of the basic aims of our struggle were an
important part of the combative speech Fidel gave in his own
defense-an accusation and a program delivered before the
nervous judges (who hours later would sentence him to fifteen
years in prison) and the watchful and open-mouthed soldiers
guarding him.

Amidst absolute silence Fidel's words were heard clearly.
How far were these judges and soldiers from imagining that
the words of a prisoner being tried secretly so that no one
would find out what he said, would, years later, for the
benefit of the people, become the laws of the nation!

I stated that the second consideration on which we based
our chances for success as one of social order. Why were we
sure of the people's support? When we speak of the people
we are not talking about those who live in comfort, the
conservative elements of the nation, who welcome any
oppressive regime, any dictatorship, any
despotism - prostrating themselves before the masters of the
moment until they grind their foreheads into the ground.
When we speak of struggle and we mention the people, we
mean the vast unredeemed masses those to whom everyone
makes promises and who are deceived by all; we mean the
people who yearn for a better, more dignified, and more
just nation; those who are moved by ancestral aspirations
of justice, for they have suffered injustice and mockery
generation after generation; those who long for great and
wise changes in all aspects of their life; people who, to
attain those changes, are ready to give even the very last
breath they have, when they believe in something or in
someone, especially when they believe in themselves. The
first condition of sincerity and good faith in any endeavor
is to do precisely what nobody else ever does, that is, to
speak with absolute clarity, without fear. The demagogues
and professional politicians who manage to perform the
miracle of being right about everything and of pleasing
everyone are, necessarily, deceiving everyone about
everything. The revolutionaries must proclaim their ideas
courageously, define their principles, and express their
intentions so that no one is deceived, neither friend nor
foe.

In terms of struggle, when we talk about people we're
talking about the six hundred thousand Cubans without work,
who want to earn their daily bread honestly without having
to emigrate from their homeland in search of a livelihood;
the five hundred thousand farm laborers who live in
miserable shacks, who work four months of the year and
starve the rest, sharing their misery with their children,
who don't have an inch of land to till and whose existence
would move any heart not made of stone; the four hundred
thousand industrial workers and laborers whose retirement
funds have been embezzled, whose benefits are being taken
away, whose homes are wretched quarters, whose salaries
pass from the hands of the boss to those of the
moneylender, whose future is a pay reduction and dismissal,
whose life is endless work and whose only rest is the tomb;
the one hundred thousand small farmers who live and die
working land that is not theirs.[...] These are the people,
the ones who know misfortune and, therefore, are capable of
fighting with limitless courage! To these people whose
desperate roads through life have been paved with the
bricks of betrayal and false promises, we were not going to
say: "We will give you..." but rather "Here it is, now
fight for it with everything you have, so that liberty and
happiness may be yours!" [...]

Historic results of Moncada
To get to today, the historic results of the failed attack
on the Moncada garrison were of vital importance.

First, it initiated a period of armed struggle that did
not end until the tyranny's defeat.

Second, it created a new leadership and a new organization
that repudiated passivity and reformism; that was determined
and combative; and that, in the trial itself, raised a
program with the key social, economic, and political demands
needed to transform Cuba. They rejected the Platt Amendment
spirit of the old-time leaders, who were left behind, losing
influence among the masses.

As a concrete demonstration of this loss of influence, the
following appeared in the "Political Parade" section of the
magazine Bohemia, on December 4, 1955:(13) "Fidel Castro is too
dangerous an opponent for some of the opposition leaders who
in three and a half years have not seen fit to take a
straightforward stance on Cuba's situation. These leaders
know it very well. They already feel themselves displaced due
to the strength of fidelismo in the battle against the
military.

"The logical reaction of the opposition politicians in
face of this clear fact should be to answer the revolutionary
action of fidelismo with some resolute political action of
their own."

Third, it brought Fidel Castro to prominence as the leader
and organizer of the armed struggle and of radical political
action by the Cuban people.

Fourth, it served as a lesson subsequently in organizing
the Granma expedition and the guerrilla action in the Sierra
Maestra.

Fidel has not come to be Cuba's national leader solely for
demonstrating courage and daring, firmness and decisiveness
in organizing the Moncada assault. Rather, because together
with that, he presented the program of the country and the
people. And he not only put forward that program, but he had
the will to bring it about, and he showed the road to its
realization.

If Karl Marx said that the Paris Communards were "storming
the heavens,"(14) we should say of the dozens of young people
armed with bird guns who attacked the Moncada garrison, that
they "tried to take the heavens by surprise."

Years later, on the Granma, the little engine would come
again. Conditions had ripened; we were not counting on the
success of a single action, making all other plans dependent
on it. Rather, we made it so that one or more failures would
not doom the entire effort. And in spite of the early,
serious setbacks that the Granma expeditionaries suffered at
the beginning of the guerrilla struggle, the firmness and
tenacity of Fidel in inculcating in those first few fighters
the idea of never giving up sustained the guerrillas in those
early days. The support of the peasants and agricultural
workers were obtained first; the support of the working class
and the rest of the population came later. All this
constituted the big engine that toppled the tyranny and began
the revolution. This did not happen on that July morning in
1953 but rather on January 1, 1959, when, with a firm base,
we began the storming of the heavens, which for a true
revolutionary, for a Marxist-Leninist, is conquered here on
earth: progress, well-being, and the happiness of our people.

July 26 is a great anniversary date of the revolution.

July 26 is a great day in the history of our homeland.

July 26 was extended in the Granma, in the mountains, in
the plains. It materialized in January 1959; on May 17 in the
agrarian reform; in the urban reform;(15) in the army garrisons
transformed into schools; in the nationalization of the
electricity and telephone monopolies, of the banks, the sugar
mills and other large industrial enterprises in the country,
all of which allowed the revolution to take into its hands
all the main pieces of our economy, a basic measure to
strengthen ourselves and move forward under the circumstances
that surround us. It is tied together and extended in the
Declaration of Havana,(16) in the victory at Playa Girón(17) and
with the proclamation of the socialist character of our
revolution, which realizes in our beloved Cuban land the
highest and most cherished ideal of human society: putting an
end to the exploitation of man by man.

FOOTNOTES
1. Accusations that the Moncada attack was a putsch were
common in the bourgeois press at the time. This was also the
position of the pro-Moscow Popular Socialist Party (PSP). In
a July 1953 statement of its position, reprinted by the Aug.
5, 1953, issue of the Daily Worker, newspaper of the U.S.
Communist Party, the PSP wrote, "We oppose the actions of
Santiago de Cuba and Bayamo. The putschist methods which were
used are characteristic of bourgeois groups.... The PSP
condemns the putschist adventurism which is directed against
the fight of the masses."

2. In the midst of the revolutionary upsurge of the 1930s
that in 1933 toppled the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado, a
number of armed "action groups" were formed, composed
initially of revolutionary-minded young people. As the
momentum of the revolutionary upsurge was contained and then
reversed over the course of the decade, however, these groups
degenerated into rival gangster-like formations that served
the interests of various bourgeois currents. Armed conflicts
between the different gangs reached a peak in the years
before Batista's coup.

3. The Popular Socialist Party was the name taken in 1944
by the Communist Party of Cuba.

4. Eduardo Chiba's was founding leader of the opposition
Cuban People's (Orthodox) Party in 1947. The party attracted
support from many workers and youth who opposed the
corruption and subordination to Washington of Prío's
Authentic Party. Fidel Castro was a leader of the left wing
of the Orthodox Party. In August 1951, Chiba's committed
suicide at the conclusion of a radio address as protest
against government corruption.

5. The PSP regularly supported candidates of bourgeois
parties.

6. The Platt Amendment, named after U.S. Senator Orville
Platt, was a provision imposed on the Cuban government that
was established during the U.S. military occupation following
1898. Under the terms of that amendment - incorporated in
Cuba's new constitution - Washington was given the "right" to
intervene in Cuban affairs at any time and to establish
military bases on Cuban soil. These provisions were
eliminated from the Cuban constitution in the wake of the
1933-34 revolutionary upsurge there.

7. Eusebio Mujal was head of the Confederation of Cuban
Workers (CTC). Originally a supporter of Prío's Authentic
Party, he became a firm adherent of Batista, and sought to
use the CTC officialdom as a vehicle to police the labor
movement for the dictatorship.

8. The initials in Spanish for the Cuban People's Party,
commonly known as the Orthodox Party.

9. The Socialist Youth was the youth organization of the
Popular Socialist Party.

10. José Martí (1853-1895) was a noted poet, writer,
speaker, and journalist, who founded the Cuban Revolutionary
Party to fight Spanish rule and oppose U.S. designs on Cuba.
Under Martí's leadership, the party launched an independence
war in 1895 in which he was killed in battle. Martí's
revolutionary anti-imperialist program is part of the
internationalist traditions and political heritage of the
Cuban revolution.

Within Cuba the young anti-Batista fighters were closely
identified with defending Martí's legacy. Because of this,
during 1953 they were given the name Generation of the
Centennial.

11. In 1953 the Maisí Company, backed by the Rural Guard,
attempted to force peasants living on Realengo 18 to pay them
rent. The peasants fought back and were able to prevent this
move.

In 1955 peasants in El Cobre in Oriente province waged a
battle against eviction at the hands of the large landowners.

In 1957-58 the Batista dictatorship gave the U.S.-owned
Francisco Sugar Company state lands in Las Maboas, in
Camaguey province. Large struggles were waged by peasants and
other working people both to defend Cuba's national patrimony
and in defense of the peasants' rights.

12. On November 30, 1956, eighty-two revolutionary
fighters, including Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro, Juan Almeida,
and Ernesto Che Guevara, set sail from Tuxpan, Mexico, toward
Cuba aboard the yacht Granma, to initiate the revolutionary
war against the Batista regime. The expeditionaries landed in
southeast Cuba on December 2.

13. Bohemia was Cuba's leading newsmagazine in the 1950s,
with a weekly circulation of over a quarter of a million.

14. The Paris Commune of 1871 represented the first attempt
to establish a revolutionary government of the toilers. The
working people of Paris held and administered the city from
March 18 until May 28, when their resistance was crushed by
the forces of the French bourgeoisie, working in league with
the Prussian army. In the ensuing terror more than seventeen
thousand working people of Paris were massacred. The
quotation by Marx is from a letter to Ludwig Kugelmann dated
April 12, 1871 (Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 44,
pp. 131-32).

15. The agrarian reform law of May 17, 1959, set
a limit of 30 caballerías (approximately 1,000 acres) on
individual landholdings. Implementation of the law resulted
in confiscation of the vast estates in Cuba-many of them
owned by U.S. companies. These lands passed into the hands of
the new government. The law also granted sharecroppers,
tenant farmers, and squatters a deed to the land they tilled.
Another provision of the law established the National
Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA).

The urban reform law of October 1960 gave all Cubans
either outright ownership of their dwellings or permanent use
of them with a monthly fee not to exceed 10 percent of their
income.

16. The First Declaration of Havana, adopted at a mass
rally in Havana in September 1960, was a condemnation of U.S.
imperialism and its domination of Latin America. It was
expanded and deepened by the Second Declaration of Havana of
February 1962. Both documents are contained in the pamphlet,
The Second Declaration of Havana (Pathfinder, 1962).

17. On April 17, 1961, 1,500 Cuban mercenaries invaded Cuba
at the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast. The
counterrevolutionaries, organized and financed by Washington,
aimed to declare a provisional government to appeal for
direct U.S. intervention. The invaders, however, were
defeated within seventy-two hours by Cuba's militia and its
Revolutionary Armed Forces. On April 19 the last invaders
surrendered at Playa Girón (Girón Beach), which is the name
Cubans use to designate the battle. (The fifth installment in
this series, in the May 10 Militant, was a speech by Fidel
Castro on the battle of Playa Girón.)